Video: Matt Lyle – TheaterJones Performing Arts News

In a new series, videographer Betsy Lewis gives the Proust Questionnaire to performing artists. Next up is the playwright whose A 3D Adventure opens at Circle Theatre.

by Betsy Lewis
published Monday, August 12, 2019

Welcome to a new series on TheaterJones: A Little Dreaming is Dangerous: The Proust Questionnaire Offstage.

If that sounds heady, you only need to know that it’s based on the Proust Questionnaire, a series of questions that inform about the interviewee’s personality. It was popularized by the French author Marcel Proust more than 130 years ago. Questions include “what historical figure do you most identify with,” “”who is your favorite fictional villain,” or “where would you like to die”? The magazine Vanity Fair famously co-opted the Proust Questionnaire.

This video series is shot and produced by Betsy Lewis, a Dallas-based videographer. She uses prompts from various versions of the Proust Questionnaire, and throws in a few questions of her own. The interview subjects will be folks in the performing arts community in North Texas.

This entry features Matt Lyle, the Dallas-based playwright and co-founder, with his wife Kim Lyle, of Bootstraps Comedy Theater. Lyle’s works have been popular on local stages, including The Boxer (Festival of Independent Theatres/FIT), Barbecue Apocalypse (Kitchen Dog Theater), and Big Scary Animals and Raptured (Theatre Three), the latter of which premiered this year. At this recent FIT, the Lyles co-starred in one of this year’s biggest successes at the festival, Adam Szymkowicz’s Nerve.

The newest work from Lyle, A 3D Adventure premieres at Circle Theatre this week, in a production directed by Matthew Gray. The cast features Jenna Anderson (Boof), Whitney Blake Dean (Actress 1), Parker Gray (Actor 1), Bob Hess (Doc), Olivia Grace Murphy (Actress 2), and Zachary J. Willis (Actor 2). According to the news release, the play centers on a “small theater troupe’s madcap production that goes inexplicably, spectacularly off the rails. The actors find themselves cast into a strange surreal world resembling some of your most beloved films.”

Previously in Proust Offstage:

• Actor and director Christie Vela (July 9, 2019)
• Playwright Jonathan Norton (Aug. 6, 2019)

 

* This article was originally published here